This isn't the post some of you may be expecting. That post will hopefully come much later today (after we find out and then make a quick trip to BabyGap).
This post, actually, was inspired by Holly's—at Nothing But Bonfires—latest post.
Every night after a very long commute, part of which was spent stopped at various red lights in various parts of seedy Dallas and another part spent sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I walk in to find Molly going just insane to see me. She jumps, she wags her tail, she just saw me less than 12 hours before, but you'd think she hadn't seen me in months. I'm not sure how anyone couldn't be a dog person, but if you aren't, I imagine you've never been met at the door after a really long day by a living creature that is thrilled to see only you. Yes, that's a pretty great feeling.
Then there's that moment, usually in November, when I step outside and smell the first chimney smoke of the season. The smell that reminds me of baking and hot chocolate and college football and dusting off stockings and Christmas tree ornaments and even crowded Target stores and, really, an entire season devoted to mashed potatoes and family (two of my absolute favorite things).
Obviously I've never had a child (other than the above-mentioned dog of mine), but I have been an aunt for some time now, and it's safe to say that one of the very best feelings in the world is when a kid reaches up to you because they recognize you as a safe point, as a person who will comfort them. I hear it gets cumbersome when it's your own and you're constantly expected to pick them "up, up, up," but as an aunt it has never gotten old, having a kid reach for me.
A few others: warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and new scarves and finding an unexpected $20 in a pocket or last-season handbag. Also when you randomly run into someone from high school or college, someone who wasn't always nice to you, someone you never really cared for, no, but when you run into them you look fantastic because you've recently lost weight or gotten an adorable new hair cut or are wearing a pair of the expensive jeans that make everyone's ass look great, and even though you know you shouldn't care, you also know this is how they'll remember you from now on, and you secretly love it. Or rainy days when you don't have to be at work. Chocolate croissants or getting an unexpected "just because" card or birthday parties or popping open a bottle of champagne to celebrate nothing other than making it through another day.
And, finally, not my wedding day or the day Mike told me he loved me for the first time atop the Empire State Building or the early morning beach proposal or the day we found out we were going to have baby—although all of those days were incredible, of course—but the random Wednesday night when we're together on the couch, Mike watching some ridiculous show on the Discovery channel and me reading or writing a blog post or browsing some online sale, and because our couch is the size it is, Mike's legs are draped across mine or his knee is touching me and Molly is jammed in between us somehow, and I realize that all those other huge, monumental days were for this kind of night: the quiet, peaceful, easy kind of night. I look at him, and he doesn't even know I'm looking, and I exhale because this is my life. It's ordinary looking in. We have dirty dishes in the sink, and we live in a boring, quiet suburb, and we have water bills and electricity bills and student loan bills, and our grass doesn't look greener to anyone, I'm certain of it, but on that random Wednesday night, I can't stop thinking, How did I get so damn lucky?
So, what are the best things in your life?